Heat of the Summer
by Helena's Mangos
Summary: "I just do what I wanna in the heat of the summer" - Young the Giant. Piper and Alex spend their summers together on Cape Cod. Vauseman. High School AU.
1. Prologue

**._ I just do what I wanna ._**

**_. In the Heat of the Summer ._**

**_\- Young the Giant_**

* * *

Heat of the Summer

Prologue

_Summer 2011_

Alex huffed as she tossed another tank top into the open duffel bag on her bed, her focus entirely on the scene outside of her window, where the other kids who lived in her apartment complex were skating around with hockey sticks in the parking lot.

"Do I _have_ to go?" she called again to her mom in the room next door. Her voice was whiny, but she couldn't help it. "I could just stay here. You know I'm responsible," she said convincingly.

"Al, you're ten. What kinda parent would I be to leave my ten-year-old kid on her own for a whole month?" Diane said, popping her head into Alex's doorway. Her eyes followed Alex's as she watched the kids outside. "I know you'll miss your friends, but you'll have fun with Danny and Piper. And when we get back, you'll have another full month to play with the neighborhood kids before school starts back up."

Alex turned to face her mom, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly. "Piper is _so_ annoying! She's gonna follow me around the whole time like last year." Piper Chapman was such a goody-two-shoes. She _never_ broke any rules and was always running to tell on Danny and Alex when they got up to no good.

"She likes you," Diane said. "She's got two rambunctious brothers and parents who are bat-shit crazy; she needs a calming presence like you in her life."

Alex just turned sulkily back to throwing her clothes into her bag. Sighing softly, Diane entered the room and sat on the bed in front of her daughter. "Hey," she said softly and waited for Alex to meet her eyes. "This is the only way we're able to have a vacation each year; you know I can't afford to take time off from work, let alone get us a nice hotel somewhere on the beach. I like having this time with you."

Alex sighed, but knew her mom was right. She also knew that it mattered to Diane that Alex wasn't lacking anything that kids growing up in middle-class, two-parent households had access to. She did her best for Alex, and Alex would do her best for her mom, even if that meant stealthily evading Piper Chapman for an entire month.

**. . . **

That summer, dodging Piper was easier to do than she had thought. The eight-year-old was oddly perceptive. It didn't take long for her to realize that Alex and Danny didn't really want her around.

That was the summer that Danny Chapman kissed her underneath one of the lifeguard stands on the beach in front of the Chapmans' summer house. It had been innocent enough, just a firm press of puckered lips, but the feeling of Danny's chapped, sandy lips against hers had made her stomach churn.

Piper, who had followed them down to the beach without their knowing, had squealed a disgusted "_Gross!_", effectively ending their kiss. Embarrassed and red-faced, Danny had taken off after Piper, the younger girl screeching as she fled her older brother. That was the one and only time Alex had been thankful for Piper's presence, because, well…

That was _also_ the summer Alex had begun to notice the older female lifeguards and the way their bodies looked in their pristine white bathing suits.

* * *

**A/N: Hi everyone! Here is the prologue to a new story I have been working on! Sorry to those of you waiting for an update for Fall Girl - I have been inspired to work on this idea I've had for awhile, and I've been doing a good job with finding time to write as long as I'm following that inspiration! So until this story is done (which won't be too long) Fall Girl is put on a slight hold.**

**I've got about 12 pages of this story written, and am trying to stay ahead so that I can post updates regularly. The next part will take place 6 years later when Alex is 16 and Piper is 14. And then the final part will take place 2 years after that when Alex is 18 and Piper is 16. Depending on how long those parts become, I may split them up, so I'd guess we're looking at anywhere from 2 - 4 more chapters of this.**

**I know this prologue was short, but the next parts will be similar to my regular story chapters, anywhere from 9 to 15 pages each.**

**I've also got another idea in the works that I will probably start writing after this fic is done and I get the next chapter of Fall Girl up, so look out for that! I'll give you guys a little hint - it's a historical piece.**

**Anyway, I hope you are intrigued by the prologue! I'd love to hear what you thought and where you think I might be going with this :) This is an idea I've had for years and finally felt inspired to sit down and write it out! Please leave a comment - they always make me smile and I love to hear from you guys!**

**Much Love,**

**H.M.**


	2. Summer 2017, Part I

**.^ .^ .^ **

_Summer 2017_

Rolling down the window of her family's SUV, Piper inhaled the salty ocean air with closed eyes. She felt her lips begin to quirk up into a small smile at that familiar smell; one of her very favorites because it brought up so many good memories from her childhood. Spending summers at her grandparents' beach house on Cape Cod had somehow always brought her dysfunctional family together. Nearly all of her favorite family memories took place right there on the Cape.

Cal flicked her on the cheek.

"Owwww," she groaned out a complaint, opening one eye to glare at him. The wind whipped stands of her long blonde hair into her face.

"What are you gonna do once we get there?" he asked, and she could see that he was beginning to feel that same excitement that she was.

"I'm going straight to the beach," Piper replied. She wondered what Alex would be doing, wondered if she and Diane had even arrived yet. As a kid, the younger girl had looked up to Alex, had thought she was _so_ cool. She'd spent much of her summer vacations trailing the older girl, begging to be included in the adventures she and Piper's older brother, Danny, came up with.

But Alex and Danny were always leaving her out, laughing at her expense. It didn't take long for Piper to take the hint; Alex didn't like her. It was an odd lesson for Piper, who had always been a well-liked child, popular with her classmates and favored by her teachers. So, she stopped following them around and instead began to spend more time with her younger brother, Cal.

She was fourteen now, and still thought Alex was cool, in a nerdy rebellious kind of way. Two words that didn't usually go together, but that described Alex pretty perfectly. Alex spent a lot of time reading and had a genuine curiosity about the way the world worked. Piper did too, but the older she got, the more embarrassed she was to care about stuff like that. Alex never seemed embarrassed by her desire to learn, though, and Piper found that sort of admirable. In fact, Alex really wasn't swayed much by other people's opinions of her. She dressed and acted how she wanted to, even if it wasn't considered cool or in fashion by everyone else. Somehow, that made her even cooler than following the trends would have.

Piper, on the other hand, was cool in the more typical sense of the word. She was popular. She was thin, and blonde, and pretty, and smart enough to get by without seeming like she tried too hard. Her interests aligned with the current trends. Over the past year, her figure had elongated and become curvier, giving her a slightly more mature appearance. Boys had crushes on her, and girls wanted to be her best friend. And that was important to her.

"What about you?" she asked Cal. She glanced into the back seat for a moment to where Danny was sprawled out, fast asleep. She could just make out the heavy rock melody that was blasting from his earbuds.

"I was thinking the penny arcade," he said, "but maybe I'll go with you to the beach instead."

Piper smiled at her brother as her dad pulled the SUV into the driveway. "I plan to be on the beach for most of the summer this year. I want to start freshman year with a nice tan."

Cal just rolled his eyes at her shallowness. On some level, she agreed with him, but at the same time, high school only happened once, and first impressions were everything. A part of her hated that she cared so much about what others thought, but she liked fitting in, she liked being popular. He'd probably understand in a year or two.

"Just make sure you're all back in time for a family dinner tonight," Bill said as he shifted the SUV into park, looking back at his three children in the rearview mirror.

"We will, Dad," Piper reassured, while Cal nodded. Danny was still dozing.

When Piper got to her room, she flung her suitcase onto the bed and unzipped it, digging through her clothing until she found her bikini. It was a vibrant pink, with a cute strappy design on the top likely to leave strange tan lines, but it didn't really matter because she had brought a variety of suits that would eventually make sure to even out any weird tan lines over time. The pink strappy bikini was the cutest one she had brought, and it looked great against her skin tone and with her blonde hair; she wanted to start the summer off with her best foot forward.

After she had changed, she pulled on a pair of light-wash denim shorts and made her way over to the large picture window at the center of her room. She _loved_ her room at the beach house.

Pulling the curtains away from the center and securing them to the wall, she took in the view of the beach. Below the window was a wooden bench, covered with a soft cushion and numerous pillows – perfect for sitting and simply taking in the view, writing in her journal, or reading. Kneeling there, she sat for a moment, just staring out at the beach. She took in the surfer dudes, out riding the waves; the lifeguards who were now just a few years older than she, in their blindingly white swimsuits, gossiping atop the tall, wooden stands. There were families with children running along the tide line, building castles out of sand, bumping a volleyball back and forth.

She felt the smile stretch across her face as the desire to join them washed over her. She hoped Cal was ready.

**. . .**

Alex looked up from her book as the door to the porch opened, squeaking only slightly on its hinges.

Feeling her eyes widen in surprise, Alex took Piper in as she poked her head out onto the porch.

"Hi, Alex," she said with a small smile, waving awkwardly from the doorway.

Alex could not help the way that her eyes roamed over Piper's body. Somehow, over the last year, Piper had gone from Danny's annoying kid sister to Danny's _hot_ kid sister. When had she grown up so much? Piper was _tall_, nearly as tall as Alex was –she must have hit her growth spurt sometime over the past year since Alex had seen her last. Her hair was long, as it always was, but was more well-managed, like she had taken time to style it. It flowed over her shoulders in long, beachy waves. Along with the growth spurt, Alex could see that her body had also begun to fill out; the pink bikini top she wore highlighted her new, slight curves. While the new fullness of her chest was subtle, it was made more noticeable in contrast to her flat, toned stomach.

Realizing that she was staring, Alex managed to fix her gaze back on Piper's face. Hopefully Piper was still too naïve to pick up on the fact that she had just been checking her out.

"Hey Piper." She hoped her voice sounded casual, but she was pretty sure it was a higher-pitch than usual.

Piper looked down at the ground almost shyly as she scuffed the toe of her black flipflop on the smooth wooden slats of the porch. Meeting Alex's gaze again, she said, "Cal and I are heading to the beach if you want to come. Danny's face-timing his girlfriend," she added with a small eye roll, "but he said he'd come find us when he's done."

"Sure," Alex replied simply, and Piper's eyes widened in surprise.

Her eyebrow furrowed slightly, and she said somewhat skeptically, "Really?"

Alex felt the corner of her lip tug up into a lopsided smirk. She raised her eyebrows and nodded her head in affirmation, folding down the corner of the page to mark her place in her book while she stood from her spot on the porch swing. "Yeah. Let's go."

The three of them walked along the beach to find the perfect spot to lay out their towels. As they walked, Cal jabbered on about all of the things he couldn't wait to do this summer while they were on the Cape. She noticed that Piper was quiet, not joining in on her younger brother's enthusiasm for all of the activities Cal and Piper usually partook in. And it struck her again, just how not-a-kid Piper was. At fourteen, she stood at stark contrast to Cal at twelve, and Alex could tell that she no longer had an interest in many of the childish activities that she had been excited about even just last year.

"I'm going in!" Cal shouted, throwing his bunched up towel on the sand near where Piper was spreading her own towel out and running toward the ocean.

Alex chuckled softly at his enthusiasm. Piper smiled at her knowingly, and it seemed as if they had shared the exact same thought. The idea made Alex smile, and she had to mentally shake her head at herself. _What was happening?_

And then she knew for sure as she watched Piper shimmy out of her jean shorts; she was definitely crushing on this new, more teenage version of Piper. The exact same Piper she had always viewed as somewhat of an annoying kid sister. _She was fucked._

**. . .**

Piper felt Alex's eyes on her body as she removed her shorts from around her ankles. It made her self-conscious, and she wondered if Alex was judging her body. She felt her cheeks color from the attention – she was still trying to get used to some of the ways her body had been changing recently due to puberty.

She was one of the last in her group of friends to get her period and had one of the flattest chests of the girls in her grade. She was athletic, though, and her doctor explained that that was likely the reason she was slightly behind most of her friends in terms of starting puberty. He had mentioned that as well as genetics – and her mother had also been a 'late bloomer'.

She worried about looking too thin; most of her friends told her how jealous they were of how thin she was, but she thought she still looked like a kid – all flat and angular, with hardly any curves; and now, thanks to her recent growth spurt, she was also tall and lanky. Her mom reassured her that she'd grow into her height, but right now she couldn't help but feel like she stood out – and not in a good way.

Clearing her throat slightly, she snuck a peak at Alex, who had already settled onto her towel, to see if she was still looking at her. She was relieved to see that Alex was lathering an obscene amount of sunscreen over her exposed skin.

Piper smiled wryly at her as she settled onto her own towel.

"What?" Alex asked with a somewhat playful grin.

"Think you got everywhere?" Piper sassed, smile still in place.

Alex gave her a look. "Not everywhere," Alex replied, matching Piper's sassy tone. Then she laughed and defended herself, "I burn easily!"

Piper just chuckled at their exchange. _Could this be the year she and Alex actually became friends? _

"But really," Alex went on, more seriously, "would you mind putting some on my back?"

Without missing a beat, Piper replied, "Sure," and made a gesture with her hand for Alex to turn around. This is what friends do; and she was enthusiastic to bond in some way with the older girl who had always been so elusive and mysterious to her.

The blonde clumsily rubbed the lotion onto the ivory skin of Alex's upper back and shoulders. The older girl was wearing a black one-piece bathing suit that seemed to Piper like it came straight from the 50s. She thought it was cute, though, and it suited Alex. Vintage was trendy, although Alex probably didn't know that.

When Piper was finished, Alex smiled her thanks; the blonde thought that maybe she was blushing a little. Her cheeks seemed pinker than usual, and Piper thought it made her look really pretty. The slightly rosy color worked well with her jet-black hair and sparkly green eyes.

Piper was a little unsure of what to say to Alex, which made her feel kind of awkward. The two had never been friends, and it was intimidating to be spending time alone together; the younger girl felt pressure to make sure things went smoothly, to ensure that Alex had fun with her, and that she came across as cool and not in least bit childish, as she knew she had in the past. But she couldn't really think of anything to say to Alex that wouldn't seem silly to the other girl.

The silence must have dragged on for too long, because soon Alex grabbed her book and focused her attention on it instead of Piper.

Piper sighed softly. _Oh well. At least they were hanging out; that had never happened in the past._ Reaching into the bag she had brought, she procured her own book and settled onto her stomach to read.

"_You're_ reading?" she heard Alex say, surprise coloring her tone.

Piper turned her head to look at Alex and shrugged her shoulder the best that she could given the way she was laying propped up on her elbows. "Yeah," she replied casually. "Summer reading for next year."

"You have summer reading?" Alex's voice was even raspier when she laughed, and Piper liked the sound of it.

Piper couldn't help her smile because of it. "Is that weird?" she asked, a little confused by Alex's surprise.

"I just didn't realize that summer reading was actually a thing," Alex replied, eyes sparkling. Piper could tell she was amused, but she wasn't sure why. "I thought that was just something that was made up in books and TV shows."

Shaking her head, Piper replied, "No; I've had summer reading since starting middle school. You don't?"

The dark-haired girl huffed out a laugh. "_Piper_. Half the girls in my grade are knocked up, nearly everyone gets high on something at some point during the day, and I'll only graduate with a small percentage of the kids I started freshman year with. I can assure you, we do not have summer reading."

"Oh geez, is that what public school is like?" Piper asked, all innocent and intrigued.

Alex couldn't contain the laugh at Piper's naivety. She lay back down on her towel, maybe because her elbow was tiring from holding her up, and said up into the sky, "Not _all_ public schools, I'm sure. Public schools in low-income neighborhoods like mine; yeah, probably."

Mirroring Alex, Piper lay on her back as well. Sounding miffed, she proclaimed, "But you're so smart." She rolled her head to the side to look at the other girl.

Again, Alex laughed. "All that means is that I'll be one of the few who makes it to graduation. And then I'll probably get stuck in some job that doesn't pay much and requires long hours just to make ends meet, like my mom. And the cycle will continue."

"You're not going to college?" Piper's question was voiced softly. She had always known that she and Alex came from different worlds (Alex's mom _was_ Piper's grandparents' housekeeper after all), but it wasn't until then that she realized what exactly that meant for the both of them, for the experiences they each had had, and for the trajectory of their futures.

Alex chuckled and said jokingly, "And pay for it with what? My good looks?" Her eyes twinkled, reassuring Piper that this wasn't a touchy subject for Alex; it was just facts to the older girl. Cold and hard.

Still, she felt the need to press a bit further, and suggested optimistically, "There are scholarships, though, right?"

"My grades are good, Piper, but I'm coming from a shitty-ass school that didn't offer many opportunities to set me apart from the other mediocre applicants. There's nothing that would make me seem special in the eyes of a scholarship committee. And anyway, I'd have to win a lot of scholarships to get my whole tuition covered for all four years. I just don't see it happening."

"You could talk about that in your essays, though. You're resilient; just look at the obstacles you've overcome. When the time comes, I could help you write them?" Piper suggested.

"Why is it so important to you?" Alex asked, and she didn't sound upset or irritated by Piper's pushiness; she sounded truly curious.

Piper sat up and replied, "I just think having a college education is important. It'll open up so many other doors for you."

"That's just because that's all you've ever been told. That a college education is the only option. For you, it was never even a question as to whether or not you'd go to college. For me, it's always been something just out of reach. For people like me, all a college education means is tons of student loan debt."

Piper didn't really know what to say to that, so she didn't say anything. Her whole worldview was based on her experiences as a privileged daughter in a wealthy family; it was hard for her to understand Alex's nonchalance in the matter. _Why didn't she just try? Hard work and determination was all it really took to achieve anything in life, right?_ Piper wasn't so sure anymore. Alex was one of the smartest and hardworking people she had known.

A comfortable silence followed, and Alex picked her book back up while Piper remained lost in thought. She stared out toward the ocean at Cal, who had made friends with a group of pre-teens. They were currently burying one of the kids in sand from the neck down and laughing hysterically while they did so.

Piper knew she was privileged in some ways; her family had a lot of money and therefore access to nutritious food, good schooling, family vacations like this one – if it was something money could buy, they wouldn't be lacking it. But she couldn't help but to also reflect on the ways she felt she was disadvantaged – lack of warm, loving, and supportive parents, the pressure to always be perfect and not tarnish the Chapman name, the pressure to excel at whatever she did. Those things really didn't seem so important, though, after talking to Alex.

**. . .**

The next day found them at the same spot, only this time joined by Danny. Cal was at the penny arcade with the friends he had made the previous day.

The spot they had chosen was right down the beach from the Chapmans' summer house and mere feet from the ocean. The sand on which they had lain their towels was white and soft. Groups of vacationers and locals alike dotted the beach for miles in both directions; Alex loved their area of the beach because many of the families were regulars, people she remembered seeing from the time she and her mom had begun to vacation here every summer. While she didn't know many of them personally, their familiarity was comforting.

Just a few feet down from them was one of the many lifeguard stands, with a handful of teenage lifeguards huddled on top and underneath it. When she was little, Alex had dreamed of becoming one of them when she was old enough. Maybe next summer she would; it would help her mom out if she had a summer job. When she had turned sixteen this past year, Diane had got her hired on at Friendly's back home, and the extra money was definitely helpful toward paying their rent and bills. She felt bad for taking a month off for vacation while her mom was still working as the Chapmans' housekeeper.

Further down the beach, a group of boys were playing a game of catch with a football. Alex could see that they had caught Piper's attention.

"Hey," she said, breaking Alex's train of thought. "Do you guys wanna go bump a volleyball down by the water?" Piper asked. "We've been so lazy since yesterday, just laying around on the beach, and I'm feeling a little restless."

Danny shook his head. Alex wasn't surprised. Danny wasn't athletic; he was the more academic of the three Chapman siblings, while Piper was athletic and popular, and Cal the goofy one. Alex wasn't athletic either, but she felt the desire to make Piper happy, to not disappoint her, and also to just spend some time with the younger girl.

Alex chuckled softly at what she was about to do and tilted her head somewhat skeptically. "Okay," she said, but it sounded almost like a question.

Piper's smile widened. She jumped to her feet and tossed her volleyball up into the air, catching it when it came back down. Nodding her head sideways toward the ocean, she said, "C'mon!"

Alex followed at a slightly less-enthused pace. She called out, "I'm not very good." Seagulls swooped above them and the wind whipped her hair around. Piper was right, it did feel good to get up and move.

"That's okay; we'll just bump it back and forth. No pressure," Piper reassured as she reached the clear blue water and spun around to face the older girl. Standing ankle deep in the ocean, she shoved the volleyball in between her knees and held her arms out in front of her to show Alex the correct technique. "You'll want to hold your arms like this and aim for the ball to hit right here," she tapped the location on her forearm.

Alex mimicked Piper's form. "Like this?"

"Exactly!" She quickly grabbed the ball from between her legs and tossed it up in the air, bumping it toward Alex once it had dropped back down. "Try to hit it!"

Alex tried to run backwards, but she was less than graceful. She managed to hit the ball, but with her fist instead of her forearm, and it went off to the side instead of back toward Piper.

Piper laughed, bending over at the waist. She met Alex's eyes as the other girl just shrugged almost sheepishly at her. "That's okay!" Piper reassured through her laughter. "We'll try again!" She jogged through the water to the spot of beach where the ball had landed and then bumped it back to Alex.

They continued to bump the ball back and forth; Piper laughing every time Alex missed the ball completely or hit the ball in some random direction, and Alex's somewhat surprising competitive nature enabling her to improve quickly. It wasn't long before they had a few good streaks going, keeping the ball from touching the ground for a few passes between the two.

Piper knew Alex wasn't very athletic, but she hoped she was having fun. The younger girl enjoyed being the more experienced one of the two of them—having Alex look up to _her_ for once. She couldn't help but show off just a little bit; diving a few times into the sand to hit a ball sent astray from Alex, doing a few skillful serves, and hitting the ball a few times with a force that sent it much further than where Alex stood. She thought Alex seemed impressed, and she knew the smile on her face must have looked just a little smug.

"Mind if I join you?" Piper paused just as she was about the launch the ball back over to Alex and turned her head to see a teenage boy with shaggy blonde hair and a hopeful smile on his face. His eyes darted back and forth between both girls. Alex was glaring skeptically at him.

"Uh, sure!" Piper said with a small, somewhat forced smile. Even though she wanted to keep the game between herself and Alex, she wasn't really sure of a polite way to turn the boy down. Her parents had always emphasized the importance of her image; of making sure others perceived her positively. She had learned at an early age that there would be many times in life she'd be forced to do things she didn't want to, all for the sake of how others viewed her.

"I'm Nate," he said with a toothy smile, flipping his shaggy hair a little to get it out of his eyes. Piper noticed his teeth were so white they seemed blinding in the bright summer sun.

"Piper," she replied smiling back, "and that's Alex." She gestured with her head toward the older girl.

Nate nodded in Alex's direction as a way of saying 'hello'. He then took a couple of giant hops backwards and held his arms out as a signal that he was ready for Piper to bump the ball to him.

She glanced at Alex, hoping she was okay with their new companion, and then bumped the ball toward Nate. He bumped to Alex, who did her best to aim back toward Piper.

Nate was _really_ good. Piper could see that Alex seemed less comfortable with her ability, and she started to miss the ball more. The game no longer seemed fun; there was now an added pressure to perform for Nate, who was really cute and kept smiling at her. It made her feel nervous. Even though she was fourteen and all of her friends were boy-crazy, she wasn't there yet. Sure, she noticed cute boys, but she didn't feel ready to date them. She had never even kissed a boy yet! Maybe her thoughts on boys and dating would change this year as she entered high school.

After only a few rounds with Nate, Alex called out, "I'm gonna take a break." She nodded her head in the direction where Danny was and started to head back.

Piper's shoulders slumped. Just when she felt like she and Alex were making progress as friends, Nate had to come by and ruin it.

"Over here!" he called, and she realized she was staring after Alex, holding the ball at her side. She sighed, and then hurled the ball back over to Nate.

**. . .**

Returning back to the spot where Danny was still lounging near the towels they had abandoned for volleyball, Alex kicked his leg lightly to alert him to her presence and draw his attention away from his phone.

"Hey," he greeted, looking up at her. Alex sat down on her towel, stretching her long legs out in front of her and reclining back on her elbows. He seemed confused for a minute as he looked around for Piper, but then he found her, still passing the volleyball back and forth with Nate. "Who's that?"

Alex shrugged. "Some kid. I think he has a crush on your sister." She attempted nonchalance, but the thought _bothered_ her. She knew that it shouldn't. Piper was Danny's kid sister and most likely straight. She needed to get over this newfound infatuation.

Danny laughed, shaking his head. "Well he's about to have his heart broken, because Piper isn't into boys and dating yet."

Alex turned her head from watching Piper to look at Danny's face, and asked, unable to mask her surprise, "She's not?" This was somewhat intriguing. She had assumed Piper would be boy-crazy like every other fourteen-year-old girl she had ever known, except the fourteen-year-old girls who were gay, that is.

"No. At least not that I know of. She hasn't talked about any of the boys in her grade, and she gives me shit for dating Makenzie all the time." He picked his phone back up to continue the discarded text, as if mentioning her name had reminded him of his briefly forgotten girlfriend.

"Tell me about her," Alex said. She and Danny had been close as kids—Diane even used to joke about the two of them getting married one day, before Alex came out to her—but as they had gotten older, they had different interests and had grown apart somewhat. Even still, Alex had a soft spot for one of her earliest friends, and she wanted to hear about his life.

"Oh, she's great," Danny began. "She's _so_ smart; she wants to be a neurosurgeon. Her passion has made me consider med school as well. She's hilarious, too. You'd like her, I think." He bumped her shoulder and said suggestively, "If you ever hold true to your promise and come to visit during the school year, you could meet her."

"Seems pretty unlikely," Alex joked. She had been saying she'd come visit the Chapmans for years, but she never had. "Now that I can drive, though, maybe I will." Her gaze drifted back to Piper.

Danny continued to talk about Makenzie as Alex watched Nate flirt with Piper. She could see that Piper was laughing at something he had said. Nate touched Piper's arm, then handed the ball back to her. He leaned in to kiss her cheek, and Alex's stomach twisted unpleasantly as she could see Piper's blush all the way across the beach. With a wave, he jogged off and Piper stood frozen for a moment, before she turned and headed toward them. Alex immediately turned her attention back to Danny, not wanting to admit to even herself that she had been watching Piper.

Piper sat on her towel on the other side of Alex and tucked the volleyball back into her bag. The wind blew a loose stand of her long blonde hair into her face; Piper tucked it behind her ear. Squinting at Alex in the sunlight, she asked, "Why'd you leave?"

Surprised, Alex replied, "He liked you."

Piper looked uncomfortable. She averted her gaze to the sand and shrugged a little. Then she met Alex's eyes with a questioning gaze.

"I thought you'd want me to leave the two of you alone," Alex explained.

"No," Piper replied simply.

"Oh," Alex replied, unsure of how to respond.

Piper shrugged and sent her a crooked smile. She grabbed her earbuds and slipped them into her ears, then lay back on her towel to get some sun.

Danny leaned over and nudged Alex. "See," he said, "I told you she isn't into boys yet."

* * *

**A/N: Thank you guys so much for all of the comments on the prologue! Since it was so short, I wasn't expecting to get many, but you blew my expectations out of the water and made me soooo happy! Anyway, because you guys seem excited about the story and so many of you left nice encouraging comments, I decided to get the next part up ASAP :)**

**I did notice that my readership numbers have dropped, and I'm not sure if its due to fewer people reading Vauseman now that the show is over or if it was because the prologue was so short people decided not to read it. As long as I continue to have readers and people who comment on my stories, I'll continue to write this pairing. I'm hoping the lower number of readers is just due to the fact that the first chapter was so short and not because people are not reading Vauseman anymore.**

**The next part I am hoping to have posted in about a week or two! I've been writing like crazy on this story.**

**I hope you all enjoyed this part; and don't forget to drop a little comment telling me what you thought or which parts you enjoyed reading most :)**

**Disclaimer: I have never been to Cape Cod, so any descriptions of the town in this chapter or future chapters are completely from my imagination.**


	3. Summer 2017, Part II

**.^ .^ .^ **

_Summer 2017_

"Piper!" Sitting up abruptly, Piper looked around, recognizing that voice. Their eyes connected and a wide smile lifted Piper's cheeks right as she was tackled to the ground.

"Polly!" Piper squealed excitedly, hugging her friend back. Polly rolled off Piper and into the sand next to her friend's towel. "I was wondering when you'd get here!" Sitting up on her towel, she watched as Polly spread her own towel next to Piper's.

Pulling her white cotton cover-up over her head, Polly said, "We got in last night. How long have you guys been here?"

"Almost a week," Piper replied, squinting up at her friend. "I'm so glad you're here!"

Piper and Polly had met a few summers ago when they realized their family vacations nearly always lined up perfectly. Polly's family beach house was only a couple houses down the beach from Piper's grandparents'. Since they had met, they had been inseparable every summer.

"So what have you been getting up to?" Polly asked, rubbing some tanning oil into her skin.

Piper shrugged, reclining back onto her towel. "Mainly hanging out here on the beach."

"You haven't gone into town yet?" Polly asked, so surprised that she paused from rubbing the oil onto her thigh to look up at Piper.

Piper smiled. "Waiting for _you_," she said, as if it were obvious.

Polly smiled and rolled her eyes. "Well let's go into town tomorrow. We can take the trolley! Do you think your parents will let you?"

Piper shrugged, "I don't know. Probably. If not, maybe we can try to get Alex and Danny to come along. You know, be our chaperones?" Piper joked.

Polly rolled her eyes at the mention of Alex's name. The two really didn't get along very well. "Ugh. Alex is here again? Please don't invite her to come along, Pipes. I know you used to idolize her as a kid or whatever but you're grown enough now to see that she is a _loser_."

Polly rolled onto her stomach. Piper said, "We've been hanging out. She's cool."

Polly turned her head towards Piper to give her a look that said, '_Come on!_', and rolled her eyes.

Continuing, Piper said, "I'm sure my parents will let us go by ourselves. They know they can trust me, and the town is safe. We've been coming here every summer for forever."

Polly nodded emphatically. "_And_ we're about to be high-schoolers. We deserve a little independence!"

"Well, look who it is!" Alex's raspy voice teased from somewhere above them. "I was wondering when you'd show up, Holly."

Piper couldn't help but chuckle. Polly groaned and rolled her eyes. Sarcastically, she said, "And I've been wondering when you're gonna stop freeloading vacations off of Mr. and Mrs. Chapman." She looked expectantly up at Alex blinking her eyelashes innocently.

"Oh, believe me, I've been trying to weasel my way out of these vacations for years," Alex said nonchalantly, sitting in the sand on the other side of Piper. "Mainly just so I'd never have to see _your_ face again."

Piper groaned. "Can you two just play nice?" she whined.

"You know we can't," Alex replied playfully.

Polly just rolled her eyes. It was clear to everyone that she didn't find Alex amusing.

Danny sat down on the other side of Alex. "We _love_ having Alex and Diane here with us," he said throwing his arm across Alex's shoulder. "Vacations wouldn't be the same without them."

Polly scoffed. "Yeah, because you'd have to do all the cooking and cleaning yourselves."

A surprised laugh escaped Alex's lips. She couldn't help but agree a little with Polly's statement. She liked the Chapmans, really she did, but they sure were spoiled with the lives they led.

Polly actually seemed pleased that Alex got a kick out of her joke, and a satisfied smirk settled on her face, but Piper and Danny looked hurt.

"That's not what I meant," Danny tried to clarify. "Diane and Alex are practically part of the family."

Bristling, Alex's eyebrows furrowed in disagreement as she said, "We are not. My mom is your _housekeeper_. Look, we may be friends, but we're definitely not family."

Danny's face screwed up, hurt and taken aback by Alex's comment. Piper didn't say anything; she stared at the sand, her fingers picking at a loose string on her towel. Alex knew she had made the conversation awkward, but it was the truth. The only reason she and her mom were here was so that her mom could continue to work for the eldest Chapmans and receive a paycheck.

Alex didn't kid herself to think that if that weren't the case, that she and her mom would be invited back each summer.

She felt bad that her comment had hurt Danny's—and maybe Piper's—feelings, but she lived a different life than Danny and Piper did. She wasn't going to deny her life experience in order to make Danny and Piper feel comfortable in their privilege. Her mother was their _employee_, nothing more and nothing less.

"Hey!" So engrossed in the awkward silence that had overtaken their small group, no one noticed the blonde lifeguard who had approached.

Alex's gaze swept over her. The girl was tall and fit, with her long blonde hair flowing in loose curls over her shoulders. Alex met her eyes and saw that the girl was also looking at her. She blushed a little, but sent her a crooked smile paired with one raised, questioning eyebrow.

"The lifeguards are hosting a bonfire tomorrow night right here on the beach, and we're trying to get as many people to come as we can," she smiled toward Alex. "We thought it might be fun to meet some new people."

Piper looked around at everyone with a smile on her face. "That sounds great! You can count us all in!"

"Great," the lifeguard said, her gaze lingering again on Alex. She turned to walk away, but paused to say over her shoulder, "I'm Artesian, by the way, but everyone calls me by my last name, McCullough. See you guys tomorrow night."

**. . .**

"I'm so excited your parents said 'yes'!" Polly exclaimed, dropping onto one of the trolley's long, purple bench seats. Piper sat next to her, sliding along the smooth plastic and smiling as she slipped her shades from the top of her head down over her eyes. Polly slung her arm around her friend's neck and squeezed Piper in a side hug. Piper giggled as their heads knocked together.

"This summer is going to be our best yet," she agreed, just as enthusiastically. "Getting to go into town by ourselves _and_ having that bonfire to look forward to tonight!"

"I know!" Polly exclaimed, releasing her grip on Piper. "So, what should we do today?"

Piper didn't even need to think about it; she already knew exactly what they should do. "I want to go into some of the boutique stores and maybe find something new to wear tonight."

Polly's smile widened. "It's like we have the same brain," she joked. "And then we should have lunch at La Trattoria; what do you think?"

Piper sighed as she watched the cute town seemingly pass slowly by her from inside the trolley. "That sounds perfect."

They spent a few hours browsing in the boutique shops that lined the rustic cobblestone streets of the small cape town. They weren't entirely sure what to wear to a bonfire on the beach party, but they knew they wanted to look beachy and cute. Polly picked out a floral ensemble that came in two pieces; a strappy crop top with a sweetheart neckline and a matching ruffled skirt that reached mid-thigh. Piper had packed a red bikini top that she wanted to wear, so she found a pair of worn, vintage jean shorts to match.

When they finally sat down for lunch at La Trattoria, they were ready for a break.

After they had placed their orders, Piper asked, "So what do you think the bonfire will be like?"

"Crazy, hopefully," Polly replied, sipping her water. "Have you ever been drunk before?"

Piper blushed a little. She was a definitely more a rule-follower, while she knew Polly to be a bit more rebellious. "No," she admitted. "Have you?"

"Not drunk, but I've been tipsy. It's so fun! I hope there's alcohol so we can maybe get drunk for the first time together!"

Piper frowned a little. "Don't you think we'll get in trouble if our parents find out we were drinking?"

Polly teased impishly, "So don't let 'em find out!"

Piper wasn't sure, but she didn't want to say anything else in case Polly started to think she wasn't cool anymore.

"I also hope there are some cute guys there! I've always wanted to have a summer fling; maybe this year it'll happen! I've only ever kissed one guy; his name was Drew and it was a dare, so I don't even know if it really counts," Polly rambled. "Anyway, I want to kiss someone this summer and have it actually mean something. Wouldn't it be so romantic if it happened on the beach?"

Piper nodded along with her friend, but her stomach had started to twist up in knots. She had been excited for this bonfire, but she had entirely different expectations than what Polly was describing. _Was she ready for a rager on the beach?_ She had never even been to a party with alcohol before. She was sure that if Polly was on the prowl for boys then she'd be roped in, too. _Did she want a summer fling?_

She didn't really, but on the other hand, it would be helpful to get her first kiss out of the way here, on vacation, away from anyone she knew in her real life. She was afraid to kiss a boy; what if she did it wrong? What if she didn't move her tongue right, or slobbered too much? If it happened with someone she knew, someone from school, she would never live it down. But if it happened here, it wouldn't matter if she was a bad kisser—she'd never have to see him again.

Maybe Nate would be at the bonfire. He seemed interested in her; at least, according to Alex he was. He had definitely flirted with her and kissed her cheek when he left. What would it be like to press her lips to his? The idea of it made her more nervous than excited.

**. . . **

In a tiny deli on the other side of town, Alex and her mom sat across from each other having lunch.

"So what kinds of trouble did you get into this week?" Diane asked as she finished chewing a bite of her sandwich.

Alex chuckled. Her mom knew her so well, and she was lucky to have a mom who accepted her for who she was. "Honestly," Alex began casually, "not much. Danny, Piper, and I have been spending most of our time at the beach."

Diane looked up from her plate in surprise as a smile stretched across her face. "You and Piper are getting along this year?"

Alex felt the warmth spreading across her cheeks and did her best to hide it by taking another bite of her sandwich. "She's fine," the younger girl replied around a mouthful of roast turkey and melty cheese. "More mature this year."

Diane raised an eyebrow and it was obvious she had seen Alex's blush.

"What?" Alex said, a little defensively. "We're all teenagers now, so it's not like I can ditch her like I used to."

"She sure has grown into a cute little thing, hasn't she?" Diane pressed with a mischievous, knowing smirk.

Alex just rolled her eyes and sighed. Her mom was perceptive, for sure, but she wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of admitting to her developing crush on Piper.

"_Anyway_," Alex changed the subject not-so-discretely, "some of the lifeguards are throwing a bonfire party on the beach, and I think the three of us are going to go for a while."

Diane used her napkin to wipe mayonnaise from her lip, and then tossed it onto the paper her sandwich came wrapped in. "That sounds fun."

"Yeah," Alex nodded, finishing her own sandwich. "What are you gonna do tonight?"

Diane sighed softly and smiled. "Relax," she replied. "Enjoy my night off. Maybe start reading one of the books I packed."

Alex's smile widened. "Okay; so you won't miss me?"

Diane smirked. "Not at all. _Go!_" she emphasized. "Have fun at the bonfire!"

**. . .**

After numerous threats to leave without them, Alex and Danny finally dragged Piper and Polly from Piper's bathroom mirror where they had been getting ready for at least an hour. The bonfire party was already in full swing as they walked along the beach, even though the sun had not yet finished setting over the ocean.

Piper's eyes widened as she took in the three bonfires, spaced evenly in the long stretch of beach between two of the lifeguard towers. Music blared from old-school boomboxes, and a few brave teens were dancing along. Most of the party-goers, though, were sitting in the sand around the fires, passing bottles of alcohol back and forth and roasting hotdogs and marshmallows.

Piper hadn't been expecting it to be this big. Glancing at her companions, she surmised that none of them had either. Even Alex looked somewhat impressed by the grandiosity.

As they walked closer, Polly bouncing excitedly next to her, Piper noticed a handful of people waist-deep in the ocean, throwing a beach ball around. A bit further up the beach, behind the bonfires, there was a sand volleyball court, and Nate was there, playing a game with some of his friends.

"Hey, Piper!" he called as they passed, flashing that blinding smile of his. "You should come play with us!"

Polly looked at her with intrigued eyebrows. Piper blushed and looked away from her, toward Alex, who was scowling. Polly nudged her and tilted her head toward the volleyball game, a nonverbal sign that Piper should reply.

"Maybe later!" she called back, linking her arm through Polly's in an attempt to drag her giggling friend away. She hadn't wanted to tell Polly about Nate, because she knew this was the reaction she'd get, and that Polly would pressure her to go for it with him.

"Who was _that_?" Polly pried, tone suggestive.

Piper's blush intensified. "His name is Nate," she said in a small voice. "We met the other day and passed a volleyball back and forth."

"He's cute! We should try to hang out with him and his friends later!" Polly squealed, and Piper could see her mind working; that her plan for meeting boys was beginning to piece together.

Alex huffed. "I'm going to go get a drink," she said, and turned toward Danny. "Want to come?"

Danny looked between Piper and Alex, and Piper knew he wanted them all to stay together. Danny was not much of a partier—not much for large groups of people in general—so this bonfire was definitely not his jam. He shrugged, then said, "Sure," and followed Alex as she headed toward the middle bonfire where it looked like a bunch of coolers were set up.

"We should go back and play volleyball with them," Polly suggested, pulling Piper to a stop.

Scrunching her nose, Piper replied, "But we look so cute. If we play we'll get all sweaty and sandy and our hair will get all messed up." Really, Piper just didn't want to be forced into a situation where she'd get stuck with Nate all night. She had a feeling that once Polly found a guy she liked, she wouldn't think twice before ditching Piper.

Polly gave Piper a look, but Piper could see that her argument worked. Polly didn't want to get sweaty or have her hair messed up. "Okay. So what should we do?"

"Roast marshmallows?" Piper suggested with a hopeful smile.

Rolling her eyes, Polly smiled affectionately at Piper. "Okay, ya weirdo," she said, linking her arm through Piper's and pulling her closer to one of the bonfires.

**. . .**

Alex and Danny had found a spot by the middle bonfire, where they sat and talked as each sipped at a beer.

The sun had nearly fully set, and the sky was a dark purplish black; most of the light now came from the bright flames of the three large fires. With the mask of darkness, Alex could feel the vibe around her change, as everyone became a bit rowdier, more carefree. She sensed it made Danny uncomfortable.

They continued to talk, Alex completely fine and happy to keep her own vibe chill for the time being. She and Danny didn't have much in common anymore, but it was still pleasantly nostalgic to be around him, to talk and joke with him, remembering the shenanigans they had gotten into as kids. While she had continued on the path of tomfoolery and chaos, Danny had straightened up, and she was happy for him. He had real life goals, and she was confident he'd achieve them.

"This seat taken?" Alex and Danny both turned their attention to the husky-voiced intruder, standing on the other side of Alex.

Alex smiled as recognition hit. "McCullough, right?"

The lifeguard nodded, and Alex patted the empty patch of sand next to her invitingly. "I'm Alex and this is Danny."

McCullough plopped down next to them, stretching her long legs out in front of her. Her feet were bare, and her toenails were painted a sea foam green that seemed darker in the light of the fire. She swept the waves of her long strawberry blonde hair over one shoulder, and retrieved the joint from behind her ear. Holding it up and smiling mischievously, she asked, "Wanna hit?"

Looking somewhat questioningly at Danny, she was unsure what he'd think if she took McCullough up on her offer.

"Go for it," Danny said with a shrug.

Not that she needed his approval or permission or anything, but still she didn't want Danny to think badly of her. He was going places, and for some reason it mattered to her that he didn't think of her as some directionless low-life loser.

She smiled at McCullough, took the joint, and held it between her lips as McCullough lit it for her. She exhaled the smoke, her eyelids immediately drooping and a relaxed smile gracing her lips as she felt the effects of the weed.

She passed the joint back to McCullough, who leaned over her to ask Danny, "Are you sure you don't want a hit?"

Danny shook his head. He said, "Nah," and directed his attention more to Alex, "I actually think I'm gonna head back to the house and facetime Makenzie."

"Oh," Alex replied, "Okay." She was only a little surprised that he wanted to leave so early.

He stood, brushing the sand from his shorts. "Will you make sure Piper gets home okay?"

Alex nodded reassuringly. "See you tomorrow."

After Danny had walked away, McCullough laughed, taking another hit of her joint. "Your boyfriend is kinda lame," she teased.

Alex laughed, finding the idea of Danny as her boyfriend especially hilarious due to the influence of the weed in her system. "Danny's _not_ my boyfriend!" she exclaimed in between laughs. And McCullough laughed too, even though she didn't know why the idea was so preposterously funny.

Once they had calmed down, McCullough passed the joint back to Alex, and they finished it off.

"So do you live here?" Alex asked. McCullough was cute and seemed like a lot of fun, but Alex wasn't sure why she'd taken an interest in her or what her intentions were.

McCullough nodded and then reached for a nearby cooler, dragging it closer to them across the sand, and pulled out two beers. She passed one to Alex, and said as she twisted off the cap, "My whole life."

"What's that like?" Alex asked, sipping her beer.

McCullough shrugged her shoulder, and turned her head toward Alex's. Her lids were heavy, but the blue of her eyes shined beneath them. "Mostly fun. You're always meeting new people, from all over. It's fun to get to know them." The eye contact she held with Alex seemed meaningful, and it made Alex blush a little. "Where are you from, Alex?"

Alex felt a shiver go up her spine, causing goosebumps to dot the exposed skin of her arms and legs at the way McCullough said her name. "Northampton."

McCullough bumped her shoulder, sending her a playful smile. "And what do you do for fun in Northampton?"

"Mostly this," Alex replied holding up her beer. "Minus the beach, though."

McCullough nodded slowly. "Doesn't matter where you're from, most of the teenagers I've met who vacation here have at least that in common."

"The universal pastime of bored teenagers: weed and alcohol." Alex confirmed drily.

The blonde stood then, the neck of her beer held securely in one hand as she offered the other down to Alex. "Well then," she said, wiggling her fingers slightly to encourage Alex to take her hand, "we might as well take advantage of what makes the universal pastime unique in the Cape."

Pulling Alex to her feet, she tugged her towards the ocean, linking their fingers together instead of dropping her hand once Alex was on her feet. When they reached the water, McCullough dropped Alex's hand and stepped in so that the water reached her ankles. She squealed a little at the coolness of the water and took a long swig from her beer. She tossed the empty bottle far enough up on the sand so that it wouldn't get washed out with the waves.

It was darker out in the water away from the bonfires, but the moon was nearly full and provided enough light for Alex to clearly make out her companion. From the moment she first saw the girl, Alex had thought she was attractive, but the longer she spent with her, the more she liked her. Her profile tipped upwards as the wind blew her hair back around her shoulders had Alex staring for a good minute or so.

"Have you ever shotgunned before?" McCullough asked, turning to look at Alex and catching her staring.

Alex shook her head.

"Come here," she said, reaching into her pocket to procure another joint and her lighter. Alex came to stand beside her in the ocean as McCullough inhaled off of the new joint. She shoved the lighter back into her pocket and used her newly freed hand to grasp Alex's neck, tugging her face closer.

Alex's stomach flipped pleasantly at the move, and her eyes flickering closed as McCullough's soft lips met hers. She inhaled the smoke from McCullough's mouth and the blonde's lips left hers shortly after. Alex's eyes remained closed as she exhaled the smoke from her lungs.

When she opened her eyes, McCullough's face was still close, her pupils blown out. Alex took her in, her long curling strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes, the color barely visible now, the sea foam green tank top that matched her toenail polish.

"You look like a mermaid," Alex said softly, reaching up to touch a silky strand of McCullough's long hair.

The blonde's breath hitched, and Alex closed the distance to press their lips together again, but in a real kiss this time. McCullough kissed her back enthusiastically, the still burning joint dropping carelessly from her fingers and into the ocean. She threaded her fingers through Alex's long tresses, scratching lightly at her scalp. They kissed as wave after wave crashed against their knees until finally McCullough pulled away, giggling.

"You know," she said, "I've wanted to do that since I saw you on the beach the other day playing volleyball—terribly, I might add—and I couldn't get you out of my head."

"You saw that?" Alex asked, feeling her cheeks heat up in a blush at both the compliment and the embarrassment at her lack of volleyball skills.

McCullough nodded with a smile. "I thought you were adorable."

Alex scowled and said playfully, "Most people wouldn't use that word to describe me."

"Really?" The other girl sounded surprised.

Alex raised her eyebrow, her lips quirked up in a crooked, arrogant smirk. "I usually get sexy."

"Oh," McCullough said reaching her hands around Alex's waist and tugging her closer. "sexy would definitely be the word I'd use to describe you when I invited you to the bonfire. Reclined back on your elbows with your hair tossed messily over your shoulders and across your chest. That smirk you gave me," she bit her lip. She continued, "But you sending volleyballs flying in every which direction while you tried so hard to be good; _that_ was adorable."

Alex rolled her eyes, but couldn't deny the pleasant fluttery feeling deep in her stomach. It felt good to have someone notice her; especially someone as pretty and fun as McCullough was turning out to be. She leaned in to kiss her again, and McCullough was bolder this time, running her hands up and down the length of Alex's back and sides. It gave Alex goosebumps all over.

She shivered, and McCullough pulled away, linking their fingers together. "Let's go back to the fire and warm our feet up.

**. . .**

Piper laughed along with everyone else at the joke Nate's friend Charlie had made. The boys had found her and Polly shortly after they had finished their volleyball game, joining them at the fire with a new bag of marshmallows.

She was having a good time for the most part. Nate was sweet and cute and really seemed to like her. After he had finished roasting his marshmallow, in a very smooth move, he had thrown his arm across her shoulders, and she had spent the last thirty minutes nestled against his side. It felt nice, his body firm against hers, and his arm across her shoulders provided a comforting warmth against the very slight chill that tinged the sea breeze.

Even still, she couldn't shake the nerves that were bouncing chaotically around inside her stomach. She watched as Charlie fed Polly a bit of cooked marshmallow and didn't know how her friend could be so confident around boys.

"Do you ladies want anything to drink?" Nate asked, removing his arm from her shoulders and standing.

Polly raised her eyebrows at Piper and smiled. "I'll take something. Whatever you're having."

Chewing on her lower lip, Piper quietly replied, "Same."

She had been dealing with an ongoing internal battle about drinking that night; of course a huge part of her wanted her new friends and Polly to think she was cool, and like Polly said, it would be fun to get drunk for the first time together. The other part of her, however, the part that was a careful rule-following good girl, knew that she would get into huge amounts of trouble if her parents found out she'd been drinking.

In the end, the desire to be popular and fit in won out, but she told herself that she'd only have one drink—just enough to get a little tipsy.

While Nate was gone, Piper let her gaze roam the other teenagers surrounding the bonfire. It was late now, and the darkness seemed to be all the encouragement everyone needed to let their wild sides out—well, that and the booze and weed, which Piper had smelled when she first sat down at the fire. There were many more people dancing than there had been when she had just arrived at the party, and the dancing had become raunchy. Additionally, she noticed that all around her, couples were making out. Her stomach twisted a little as she felt the added pressure that put on her to kiss Nate. _Was he expecting it?_

He returned a moment later with four beers and passed them around to their small group. Charlie had his arm around Polly now, and the two were whispering quietly to one another. _So much for a group chat_.

Piper smiled nervously at Nate as he settled back down beside her. "Are you having fun?" he asked, flashing her a hopeful smile.

Piper nodded, blushing a little. She sipped the bitter liquid to give her something to do.

"Me too," he said, placing his arm back across her shoulders. "I really like you, Piper."

Her stomach fluttered uncontrollably as she watched his eyelids slowly close. She knew he was going to do it and her heart thudded in anticipation of her first kiss. Worries flashed quickly through her mind about whether or not she knew what she was doing and if she'd be bad at it.

As his face drew closer, she managed a quiet, "Um," and he stopped his forward momentum, his eyes opening suddenly.

His cheeks quickly turned red as he asked, "What's wrong?"

"I've just never, um, kissed someone before," she admitted.

Nate let out a small relieved breath. "Really?" he asked, non-judgmentally. "Do you want to?"

Piper paused for a moment. Nate was cute, and sweet, and seemed to care about her feelings. If she was terrible at kissing, she'd never have to see him again, unlike if she had a terrible first kiss with someone from her school, and at least she'd get her first kiss out of the way. Maybe just doing it would alleviate some of the nerves she felt about kissing.

She nodded, smiling softly.

Nate smiled in return. "Okay, so just follow my lead," he said softly, as his eyes flickered closed again and his face tilted down to meet hers.

When his lips touched hers, it felt like something in her stomach had exploded—but in a good way. She did as he said and followed his lead, moving her lips and tongue with his, and it felt _nice._ His fingers caressed her cheek lightly, causing it to tingle under his touch.

They pulled apart a few seconds later, and Nate smiled warmly at her. His cheeks matched hers in pinkness.

"So, how was your first kiss?" he asked sweetly.

Piper smiled back. "It was perfect." And it had been.

He nudged her shoulder slightly and gestured with a forward nod of his head for her to follow his gaze. She turned to see Polly and Charlie making out next to them. Piper couldn't help but smile; she felt giddy. She had had her first kiss, and it had been nothing to be nervous about. It had been nice. And Polly had wanted a summer fling, had wanted to kiss someone who wanted to kiss her back, not on a stupid dare, but just because he wanted to. She was happy her friend was getting what she wanted.

"You want another marshmallow?" Nate asked with a knowing wink. Piper nodded, laughing, and accepted the proffered marshmallow.

**. . .**

A little while later, Polly had dragged Piper away to the coolers near the middle bonfire under the guise of grabbing new drinks for everyone—truthfully, she just wanted to dish with her friend.

When they were out of earshot of the boys, Polly grabbed Piper's hand and squealed, "You and Nate kissed! How was it?"

"It was good!" Piper said, equally as enthused as Polly was. "I don't know why I was so nervous about it! It was fun, and Nate was really sweet. What about you?! How do you like Charlie?"

"He's great; I really like him. He's really funny and sarcastic, just like me, so he can keep up. He's a good kisser, too."

The girls smiled at each other as they dug around for more beers. "I'm just glad that we found two guys who are friends; now we can hang together for the rest of vacation and no one is left out. It couldn't have worked out more perfectly, really." Polly continued. After grabbing two beers, she straightened up and cleared her throat. "Hey," she said, sounding somewhat distracted. Piper grabbed two beers of her own and looked expectantly at Polly. "Did you know Alex is a lesbian?"

"What? No she's not," Piper denied, quick to defend her new friend.

Polly raised her eyebrows and gestured for Piper to turn around.

Alex had that lifeguard girl, the one with the weird first name who had invited them to the party in the first place, pinned against one of the wooden legs of a lifeguard stand. They were in the middle of a heavy make out session, their hands roaming all over each other.

Surprised, as Alex had never told Piper that she was into girls, Piper felt her stomach drop. For some reason she couldn't look away, but it didn't feel good to watch. The unpleasant emotion felt something like jealousy, but Piper wasn't sure why she'd feel jealous about Alex kissing some random girl.

"See," Polly said, tugging at Piper's arm. "I told you she was a weirdo loser, didn't I?"

* * *

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed Summer 2017, Part II!**

**I took some liberties with McCullough's character, since I feel that most of her character in the show has really been impacted by having gone to war. She seemed carefree enough in the flashback where she hired the stripper for her friend, so I kind of took that and ran even further with it.**

**Anyway, I love McCullough and I liked her storyline with Alex in the last season, but I know that others didn't care for it as much (so I apologize if you are one of those people!). I just like McCullough so much more than Silvie, and I love to have obstacles for Vauseman to overcome in my fics.**

**I think I am going to do one more chapter of Summer 2017 before fast-forwarding to 2019.**

**Please let me know what you think or what you'd like to see happen in a review or PM! :) **

**Thanks!**

**-H.M.**


	4. Summer 2017, Part III

**.^ .^ .^ **

_Summer 2017_

McCullough disentangled herself from Alex, hopping up from her seat next to the bonfire with surprising steadiness for someone so drunk and high. "Another beer?" she asked, turning back to look over her shoulder at Alex, a playful smile tugging at her lips.

Alex nodded, unable to prevent her own smile in return, and she watched McCullough saunter away toward the coolers, her hips swaying slightly in her light-wash cutoffs.

They had settled in with some of McCullough's lifeguard friends around the bonfire furthest down the beach, away from the rowdiness of the rest of the party. Alex was surprised that many people were still going strong, even as time crept into the early morning.

For the most part, McCullough's friends seemed to have pretty chill personalities, reminding Alex a lot of her friends back home. This made it easy to get along with all of them. After tonight, she was even more serious about applying to lifeguard next summer. She could picture herself hanging out with them all summer, fitting in, and earning some extra cash.

She half-listened to the lifeguards telling stories of their training and of some of the crazier shit that had happened to them on the job, and pulled out her phone to check the time. 2:37. It was later than she thought. She also saw that she had a text from Piper. The last she had seen the younger girl was a few hours ago; she and Polly were sitting with Nate and some other kid.

For someone who wasn't "into boys" as Danny had put it, Piper sure had looked cozy snuggled up against his side. _Whatever_.

She opened the text, expecting Piper to have sent her a message saying she was heading back to the house. Danny and Piper were both good kids, concerned with following the rules and not getting into trouble. It was a little strange to Alex, considering that while the Chapmans had high expectations for their children, they were actually pretty uninvolved in their lives. Alex would have taken full advantage of their permissive style, but for some reason, Piper and Danny didn't.

She swiped open the message and couldn't help but laugh at the nonsensical scramble of letters. _Was Piper drunk?_

**Piper Chapman (2:25am):**

_Alex r I still herr m?_

**Alex Vause (2:38am):**

_I am. Are you?_

**Piper Chapman (2:38am):**

_Yah I dint feel good. Where r u?_

"I snagged the last two blue moons!" McCullough said with a grin, returning to her seat next to Alex and bumping her shoulder affectionately as she passed her one of the bottles.

"Thanks," Alex replied, taking a sip. Her phone lit up in her lap, with the name **Piper Chapman** flashing on the screen.

She smiled at McCullough as she answered the phone, "Hey."

Piper hiccupped. "Alex? Where are you?"

McCullough laid her head on Alex's shoulder. Alex said, "I'm over by the far bonfire, near where most of the coolers are. Are you still with Polly?"

"No," Piper whined, and Alex could hear for the first time a touch of distress in her tone. "I'm all alone. Some guy keeps trying to talk to me, but I just want to go home. I feel all fuzzy."

Alex stood abruptly, hearing that Piper was alone. "Where are you? Don't go anywhere with anyone," she ordered, feeling a sudden sense of urgency to find Piper.

As she started walking toward the crowd of dwindling partiers, she felt McCullough's hand slip into hers. Turning her head toward the blonde, McCullough sent her a reassuring smile.

"Alex!" she heard before she actually saw her, the tiny blonde perched on a wooden hand rail near the outskirts of the middle bonfire. "See, I told you she'd come!" And that's when Alex noticed the dude sitting near her, who looked like he was in his early twenties.

Alex stormed over, feeling something like fear, and panic, and rage course through her. "Get the hell away from her!" she shouted at him. "She's fourteen!"

The guy held his hands up, a show of his innocence. He didn't seem all that bothered by Alex, but he stood up slowly and moved away from them.

"I'm so glad you found me!" Piper exclaimed, with a dopey, happy smile on her face. She skipped over to Alex and wrapped her arms around her waist in a tight hug. "I knew you would."

"Did that guy try anything?" Alex asked, pushing the younger blonde to arm's length to give her a once-over.

Piper shook her head emphatically. "No! Well, he just tried to get me to go somewhere with him, but I knew you were coming to take me home, so I told him 'no.'"

"How much did you drink?" Alex asked.

Piper shrugged, eyes wide. "A lot?"

Alex felt McCullough run a hand down her arm. Piper's slow, drunken gaze stared at the spot where McCullough's hand made contact. "I'll go grab her a bottle of water," McCullough offered.

Alex nodded to her new friend, then turned back to Piper. "Why are you alone? Where are Polly and Nate?"

Giggling, Piper said, "Polly left with Charlie foreverrrrr ago! And then Nate had to get home, but I wanted to stay and find you." She looked bashfully up at Alex through her lashes.

Alex's stomach flipped at Piper's words. She felt her face heating up in a blush, but knew Piper was too drunk to notice it.

McCullough returned a minute later with the bottle of water, unscrewed the cap, and passed it to Piper. "Drink as much of it as you can," she instructed.

Piper squinted her eyes at the other blonde somewhat defiantly, then looked to Alex for confirmation.

Alex nodded, reaching forward to tip the bottle closer to Piper. "Do it," she instructed.

As Piper drank, McCullough took Alex's hand again. "Do you need help getting your…cousin?" she guessed, "home?"

"Danny's kid sister," Alex corrected, missing Piper's frown at her choice of words, "and no, I think I can manage."

McCullough smiled a little shyly at her. "Okay," she said, "I had a lot of fun hanging out with you tonight."

Alex smiled back. "Me too. Text me tomorrow?"

McCullough nodded, tugging slightly on her hand to pull her closer for a goodnight kiss.

As she pulled back, she looked over Alex's shoulder to where Piper was standing, eyes planted firmly on her feet. "Drink that entire bottle of water before you go to sleep. Trust me, in the morning you'll thank yourself."

Piper only nodded.

After they said their goodbyes to McCullough and began walking toward the Chapmans' beach house, Alex noticed a change in Piper's mood. When earlier she had been all smiles and giggles, drunkenly touchy-feely with Alex when the older girl had first found her, she now was walking next to Alex with her arms crossed defensively under her chest, leaving a wide gap of space between them. Something between a scowl and a pout adorned her lips.

Alex couldn't help but find it adorable. She wasn't sure what had caused the mood swing, other than the alcohol itself, but she decided for the moment to stay quiet about it.

When they reached the beach house, Alex pulled Piper to a stop and pressed her index finger to Piper's still-pouting lips. Her lips felt dried out due to the dehydration from the alcohol, but still soft. "You have to be quiet," Alex said. "You don't want your parents to know you're drunk, right?"

Piper shook her head emphatically.

Alex helped her up the stairs and down the hallway toward their rooms. As they came to Alex's room, Piper's eyes widened suddenly, and she darted in. Confused, Alex followed.

"Fuck," she said, as she realized Piper had passed through her bedroom and into the attached bathroom.

The younger girl knelt in front of the toilet, not even attempting to hold her hair back as she retched. Quickly, Alex joined her, scooping her long tresses back away from her face as she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet bowl.

"You'll feel better once it's all out," Alex reassured, rubbing Piper's back soothingly with her free hand.

Piper just groaned pathetically as she hurled again.

"Ughhh, I'm never drinking again," Piper muttered to herself, leaning away from the toilet.

Alex stood and filled a small rinsing cup with water and passed it to the blonde. "Drink this. Do you want some mouth wash?"

The younger girl nodded as she gulped the water back. Alex filled a second cup with mouth wash, and traded for the now empty cup.

Piper swished the rinse in her mouth while clumsily climbing to her feet. She stumbled her way to sink, Alex side-stepping out of the way so the blonde could spit.

"I feel better," she proclaimed, making her way out of the bathroom and back into Alex's bedroom, the raven-haired girl on her heels.

When Piper reached the bed, she spun and flung herself backwards onto Alex's bed, her hair splaying out everywhere and a contented smile tugging at her lips.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Make yourself comfortable," she mumbled to herself.

"Hmm?" Piper asked, eyes closed.

Alex cleared her throat and shrugged a little hopelessly to herself. "I guess I'll go sleep in your room?"

Piper's eyes popped open at that and she managed to prop herself up on her elbows. "What? No! You can sleep in here, too! It'll be like a sleepover."

Alex sighed, not really knowing what to do. She knew she was crushing on Piper, and she _definitely_ wanted to share a bed with her, even it was torturous in the best way. But, Piper was straight, and Alex had had a lot of fun with McCullough that night; she wanted to see where things went with that.

Piper was waiting for an answer, staring up at her expectantly through large, hazy drunk eyes.

Alex rolled her eyes again, because she knew what she was about to do. Sighing, she stepped toward the bed, saying, "Scooch over."

Piper's slow smile had her heart thudding unevenly in her chest.

**. . . **

Kicking the blankets away from her feet, the first thing Piper became aware of was how warm she felt—too warm, as if her body temperature had risen two degrees. The second thing she noticed was how dry her mouth was; her lips and cheeks suctioned to her teeth. She ran her tongue between her lips and teeth and attempted to swallow to moisten her throat.

Groaning softly, her eyes fluttered open, and she took in Alex's sleeping face. Memories of the previous night came flooding back to her. She was embarrassed that Alex had seen her like that; so giggly and silly and unable to hold her alcohol. And then she had gotten sick, and Alex had held her hair back. It had been sweet of Alex to take care of her.

Her cheeks warmed at the thought, and she noticed that her hand was resting on Alex's neck underneath silky strands of inky black hair. Other memories came back to her then, too; Alex kissing the lifeguard and the sinking feeling deep in her gut at the sight of them together, wishing their group had just stayed together because she wanted to spend more time with Alex, the excited and relieved feeling at the end of the party when everyone else had left her, but Alex had found her, and then the hurt she had felt at being referred to as 'Danny's kid sister'. She carefully slipped her hand off of Alex's neck, a little uncomfortable at the direction of her thoughts.

These feelings sure seemed like a crush.

How had she not realized it before?

Her stomach churned. She carefully rolled onto her back, but immediately regretted it as her head swam and the room seemed to spin all around her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she waited for the dizzy spell to end.

Alex's raspy morning voice breathed into her ear, "How ya feeling?"

Piper cracked an eye and managed to tilt her head slightly in Alex's direction. "Not great," she groaned.

Alex chuckled softly and threw the covers off herself. She disappeared into the bathroom and returned a moment later with two aspirin and a cup of water. "Take these; they'll help with the headache and dizziness."

Slowly scooting backwards, Piper managed to get herself into a sitting position, with her back propped against the headboard. "Thanks," she managed a small smile of gratitude as she took the pills from Alex.

"You drank a lot last night," Alex broached hesitantly.

Piper shifted her eyes to Alex warily. Where was she going with this?

Alex continued in the same hesitant way, "You should be careful. Maybe not drink as much next time."

Piper frowned. Really?! Alex was going to lecture her about drinking.

"I was fine," Piper insisted, feeling defensive.

"You almost went off with some random guy," Alex lowered her voice carefully. "That could have ended really badly."

Scoffing, Piper's face twisted in disbelief. "I did _not_ almost go off with him! I told him from the very beginning that I was waiting for my friend; for _you_!"

Alex shrugged. Piper could tell she was uncomfortable by Piper's reaction, but still felt the need to continue her lecture. "What if I had already gone home? What if he had just grabbed you and taken you somewhere? You have to be careful, Pipes."

Piper rolled her eyes. "Just stop, Alex," she said angrily. She was livid. She thought Alex was finally seeing her as a peer; as someone she could be friends with, an equal. However, that wasn't the case at all. Alex would always see her as her friend's annoying kid sister.

Alex sighed. "I'm just worried about you, Piper."

"No!" Piper said sharply. "You're just mad that 'Danny's kid sister' ruined your date with a _girl_, and now you're punishing me."

The flash of surprise and hurt that crossed Alex's face as she took an actual step back from Piper made guilt bubble deep inside the blonde's belly.

The older girl was truly shocked; she didn't know how to respond to that. Confusion crept into her features until she finally shrugged resignedly and said, "Whatever, Piper," before walking out of the room.

* * *

**A/N: please forgive any errors; this is unedited because I really wanted to get it posted before I have to leave for work this morning! I really didn't want to make you guys wait any longer!**

**Next up: Summer 2019 part I! **

**Please leave a review and let me know what you think of the story so far, or where you think it might be heading, or what you'd like to see in the 2019 chapters!**

**I really enjoy reading what you all have to say about my stories and get excited each time my email notifies me to a new review.**

**Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, followed, or favorited thus far as well! I appreciate all of you!**

**H.M. :)**


	5. Summer 2019, Part I

_**.^.^.^**_

_Summer 2019_

_Two Years Later_

Scooping her shoulder-length blonde hair into a ponytail, Piper padded through the kitchen of her grandparents' beach house. It felt good to be back; the drive from Hartford had seemed especially long this year. Perhaps it was because she was so desperately in need of a vacation. Sophomore year had been stressful; chockfull of AP classes and Driver's Ed and beginning to seriously consider which colleges to apply to. Her finals had ended just last week and were difficult and cumulative. She needed a few weeks to rest her brain; to not think and just relax on the beach under the warm summer sun.

Bobby pins secure between her lips, Piper simultaneously pulled the scrunchie off her wrist to twist around her hair, while using her hip to push open the screen door that led to their enclosed back porch. Getting to the beach was the only thing on her mind.

"Alex," she breathed out unintentionally, stopping abruptly in her tracks. She was surprised at the sight of the older girl lounged on the porch swing, her legs tucked up under her and an open book in her hand. The sight made memories of summers past flash through her mind, leaving her with somewhat of a bittersweet, nostalgic craving for the simplicity of their childhood.

Alex looked up and met her gaze, eyebrow raising when Piper didn't say anything else. "Piper," she replied with a gleam in her eye, mouth twitching upward at one edge in an amused smile.

Piper shook her head slightly and smiled back. She pulled the bobby pins from her lips. "I just wasn't expecting to see you," she explained, adding a little quieter, "I missed you last year."

"Bull_shit_!" Alex exclaimed with a loud cackle and wide, teasing smile.

Piper's forehead scrunched as her eyebrows furrowed. "Yes I did," she insisted. "It wasn't the same here without you."

With a disbelieving roll of her eyes and shake of her head, Alex brushed her off nonchalantly, "Whatever."

Not sure how to respond, with Alex so confidently telling her how she _didn't_ feel, Piper remained silent. It was kind of infuriating. The truth was she _had_ missed Alex—a lot, actually.

The blonde took a step toward the porch swing, and Alex uncurled her legs to make room for the younger girl to sit.

"So, why didn't you come last year?" she asked.

Alex shrugged, looking down at the book on her lap. "I wasn't able to take a month off from work." She shrugged.

The way she had averted her eyes made Piper question if that was the true reason. She still felt guilty for the way summer had gone two years ago; for yelling at Alex the morning after the bonfire and then avoiding her for the rest of their vacation.

"Are you still working at Friendly's?" Piper kicked her legs casually back and forth as they dangled off the swing.

Alex shook her head, "No. I work at a diner now." She folded the corner of her page down and set the book aside, committing to catching up with Piper.

"And you were able to take a month off this summer?" Piper pressed, feigning innocence, but hoping to catch Alex in a lie.

Frowning a little, Alex's eyes squinted at Piper a little suspiciously, but her voice was even when she said, "Red, my boss, knows me better now that I've been there over a year. She knows that I'm reliable, so she gave me the time off." Alex shrugged again, then continued, "This'll probably be my last summer here anyway, so she knows it's just a one-time thing."

Piper's legs abruptly stopped swinging as her head spun to face Alex. With her face contorted in something like confusion and surprise, she exclaimed, "What?! What do you mean this will be your last summer here?"

An amused smile tugged at Alex's lips in response to Piper's reaction. "Well, yeah," she said, like it was obvious, "I'm eighteen now and done with school. As soon as I save enough money, I'm going to get a place of my own. So, I don't know, it's not like I'm a kid anymore, and Mom has to bring me with her. It feels weird to keep intruding on your family vacations now that I'm grown."

"Alex," Piper began, sounding almost exasperated, "You've _never_ intruded on our vacations, we like having you here with us! We look forward to seeing you every summer. I know that your mom works for my grandparents and that's always been very apparent in your eyes, but I've always only ever thought of you as a friend."

Alex rolled her eyes, but couldn't mask the genuine smile from stretching across her face. "So what have you been up to these past two years?" she asked after the beat of silence that followed Piper's heartfelt words.

"Oh ya know, just started high school, made the junior varsity volleyball team, came in third at our regional track meet, _and_ got my driver's license. Not too much, really," the blonde joked dead-pan.

Alex laughed, hitting Piper in the chest with a throw pillow. "Damn. You're really old enough to drive now? Sixteen?"

"Yep," Piper confirmed, popping the 'p'. She noticed Alex's eyes drop for a second to her chest and lower, taking her in, and the color rose to her cheeks. Ignoring the fluttering in her stomach from Alex's attention, she asked, "What's it like to be all graduated?"

"It's weird," Alex replied, eyes returning to Piper's. If she knew she had been caught looking, she didn't seem to care. "Like, I guess I'm an adult now, but I don't really feel like one. Maybe that'll change when I start working full time at the diner."

"What else is new?" Piper asked. She reached across their bodies to run her fingers through a strand of Alex's hair, grasping the end and holding it out in front of Alex's face. "Besides these blue streaks in your hair."

At the unexpected contact and the closeness of Piper's face to hers as she leaned across her, Alex's breath caught and her pupils expanded, making her eyes look very dark. Piper smirked a little. She had always craved Alex's attention, so the older girl's response to her proximity and touch was satisfying.

It was at that moment, however, that Alex's phone alarm went off. Piper jumped a little at the surprise sound and settled back in to her spot beside Alex. The older girl stretched her arms over her head as she stood. Piper wondered where she had to run off to. She wondered if Alex had plans to meet up with McCullough again this year. The thought made Piper frown unconsciously.

"I have to go," Alex answered Piper's questioning look. "I have lifeguard training this afternoon."

"Really?" Piper asked. "You're actually doing it this year?"

Nodding, Alex replied, "Yeah. I've always wanted to, and I just feel bad taking a full month off while my mom has to work. This way, I can still contribute something toward our bills and rent and have fun doing it, hopefully."

"Are you going to see McCullough?" Piper asked, somewhat boldly, she felt, because it was a personal question, one that might be crossing some line, but one she wanted an answer to for some reason.

Alex nodded. Piper could register a bit of surprise on the other girl's face, likely because she wasn't expecting Piper to ask about her ex-_fling? –girlfriend?_ "I already ran into her when I went to apply yesterday. She was nice; I think we can be friends even though we have a history."

"Oh. So you don't want to get back together with her?" Piper asked.

Shrugging a little, Alex replied, "I don't know. I haven't really thought about it."

Piper thought for a minute about what to say next. She knew that she had acted weird about Alex's sexuality two years ago, and she wanted Alex to know that she wasn't like that anymore. High school had given her more experiences than she had had at fourteen, and she wasn't as close-minded as she had been back then. She wanted to tell Alex that a good friend of hers, Zelda, was a lesbian, to show that she was okay with Alex's sexuality, but she couldn't think of a way to say it that didn't seem awkward or self-aggrandizing (like it was important that _she_ was okay with Alex's sexuality).

She decided to just let her actions speak for themselves. Sending her a big smile as Alex opened the back door to head out toward the beach, she settled on, "Okay, well, have fun!"

Alex's smile and small wave in return made her think she had made the right decision.

**. . .**

The harsh smell of chlorine stung Alex's nostrils as she made her way down a hallway in the building that housed the public indoor pool for the small town on the cape where she spent her summers. Muted shrieks from the children who were swimming echoed from the large room where the pool was located and followed her as she moved further away from the crowded spaces to a room near the back of the building where lifeguard training was to take place.

McCullough had been nice enough to show her where to go when she had expressed her interest in applying the previous day.

She found Piper's nonchalant attitude about her past relationship (if you could even call it that) with McCullough surprising; only two years ago Piper's homophobia had seemed blatantly obvious to the older girl. After finding out about Alex's _thing_ (whatever it was) with McCullough, Piper had made a strange comment about how Alex was dating a _girl_ and then had avoided her for the rest of vacation.

She supposed it _was_ possible for people to change. After all, Piper had been only fourteen at the time. She was now in high school and maybe had become more open-minded as she matured.

The thought relieved Alex. She hoped that she and Piper could continue to become friends as they had been doing before the bonfire incident. Whether Alex liked it or not, she was intrigued and drawn to the younger girl.

As she neared the end of the hall, a new muted chattering replaced the voices of screaming kids; but while quieter, the voices held similar levels of excitement as their younger peers.

"Name?" A very scratchy voice, belonging to a girl seated at a check-in table outside the training room, questioned dully. The girl's crazy auburn waves fell across her face, and she impatiently pushed them away as she peered curiously up at Alex, only for the tresses to settle once more in the same place.

"Alex Vause."

"Alex!" someone behind her exclaimed, and she felt an arm sling across her shoulder. "I'm so glad you decided to join up this summer!"

Alex turned to smile at McCullough, grateful that she knew someone who could show her the ropes and introduce her around to the others.

"Heya, waita second," the crazy-haired girl at the check-in table stuttered out, obviously intrigued. Flipping her pen back and forth between Alex and McCullough, she continued with a twinkle in her eye, "You two know each other?"

McCullough's arm tightened around Alex's neck. "This girl right here used to be my boo!" she teased playfully.

"Oh geez." It wasn't until she heard his voice that Alex noticed that McCullough's arm that wasn't tightening around her own neck was attached to a boy whose face was growing redder with embarrassment by the second.

McCullough laughed, releasing Alex. "He hates me," she joked, leaning into the boy's side. "Former boo-thang, meet current boo-thang," she introduced, leaning into her boyfriend's side.

"Brice," the boy chimed in with a smile and a small wave.

The girl at the tabled cleared her throat. "And this is Nicky," McCullough finished.

"I'm Alex," she smiled at her new acquaintances, already feeling like she could like these people.

"Alright, I've got the three of you checked off my list. You leading training today, boss?" Nicky asked.

"Yep," McCullough replied with a firm nod. "We'll go over CPR & first aid training today. Then all the newbies will be paired with a vet for the first week so that they can learn the way we do things."

The training was surprisingly quick and painless, and Alex felt like she had found a good group of people to spend her final summer at the Cape with. There was an ease to group, the veteran lifeguards accepting the newbies into the fold, no questions asked. She had hoped to see familiar faces from two years ago, when she had spent some time with McCullough's lifeguard friends, but she found that she only recognized a few faces.

McCullough explained later that only a few people worked the entire summer, she was one of those rare few. Most everyone else worked for a month or so here and there, like Alex was doing. Some of McCullough's lifeguard friends from two years ago were now in college or had moved away. McCullough said she liked it that way; every summer seemed new and fresh and unique from the others.

Alex got paired to work her shifts with Nicky. Alex discovered quite quickly that she and Nicky had similar dispositions and senses of humor, so the pairing was truly perfect.

Midway through her first week as a lifeguard, Alex and Nicky were reclined on one of the lifeguard towers, chatting casually as they surveyed the children wading in the ocean. Nicky had her eyes on a new lifeguard named Shani, and so they were devising ways for Nicky to get to know her better. The first big bonfire party, thrown by the lifeguards, would take place that Friday night, mainly to celebrate the newbie lifeguard's first full week in the books. Nicky was hoping to get some alone time with Shani there.

"Alex!" someone called, and Alex turned her gaze from Nicky to see Piper with Polly, Nate, and Charlie walking along the beach in front of her post.

Piper was waving, seemingly excited to see Alex as a lifeguard, the wind softly blowing her shoulder-length, wavy hair.

"Who's that?" Nicky asked, digging her elbow into Alex's side suggestively.

Irritated by the blush that colored her cheeks as she returned Piper's greeting with a robotic half-wave of her own, she replied to Nicky, "That's Piper."

"Piper, eh?" Nicky replied mischievously before raising her voice a little and calling out to the younger girl, "Hey, Piper!"

Piper, who had already turned her back to them, to rejoin her friends, spun around once more, an inquisitive tilt to her head as she waited for Nicky to continue. Even with the short distance between them, Alex could see the way the sun reflected sparkles of light from her eyes.

"Bonfire party Friday night! You comin'?!" Nicky shouted.

"Wouldn't miss it!" the blonde called back with a large smile, bouncing a little on her feet as she twirled away to catch up with her friends.

"She's cute," Nicky said with a little sideways smirk and eyebrow raise in Alex's direction.

Alex just shook her head and chuckled.

**. . . **

At 2:30am on Friday night, the bonfire party was winding down. McCullough and Brice had gone back to her place, and Nicky and Shani had disappeared an hour ago (Alex hoped it was together). Alex sat by herself near the bonfire farthest from the remaining crowd, closest to the Chapmans' beach house. She wanted to make sure Piper made it home okay, and the younger girl would have to pass by on her way back to the house.

She had only had two beers, preferring instead the high from McCullough's stash of weed she was generous enough to share with the other lifeguards.

Earlier that night, before the sun had fully set, she had watched Piper with her group of friends, giggly and flirty with one another. At one point, Nate had pulled Piper onto his lap and her beer had sloshed down the front of his white t-shirt, causing her to throw her head back and laugh. He had tickled her sides then, making her laugh harder, and causing more beer to spill as she wriggled away from his grasp.

Alex hated that the scene had made her chest clench with jealousy. Sure, she had had a crush on Piper two years ago, but this, _this_, felt like more than that. It had been easy to let go of that crush two years ago; fourteen-year-old Piper had been innocent, and while beginning to show signs of maturity in terms of both her intellect and her body, but she had been a follower. She didn't yet know herself or her convictions. Piper at sixteen was so much more than that. She was confident, open-minded, carefree, funny, and _smart_. It was hard not to fall for her.

"Hey." Speak of the devil.

Alex looked up from where she was currently tracing patterns into the sand with a stick. "Hey Pipes. Heading home?"

"I guess so," the blonde replied. "Polly, Nate, and Charlie all called it a night. I'm not feeling sleepy yet, though."

"Wanna sit with me for a bit?" Alex patted the space on the towel next to her with a small, playful grin.

Piper smiled back and dropped down onto the space beside Alex. "Where are all of your friends?" she asked, not wanting to name McCullough specifically, even though she was the one Piper was most curious about. Alex must have been spending a lot of time with her during her lifeguard hours, and it made her wonder if the two girls would rekindle their summer romance from two years ago. Piper selfishly didn't want that to happen; she seemed to be getting along really well with Alex again this summer, and she didn't want someone to steal all the older girl's free time away again.

"They all already went home for the night," Alex replied. She smiled teasingly and joked, "Losers."

Piper chuckled. She felt relieved that McCullough didn't seem to be clinging to Alex this summer. Maybe both of them had moved on.

"Did you have a good time tonight?" Alex asked. She reached to her side to grab a mostly empty bag of marshmallows and speared one onto her stick.

"Yeah, it was okay," Piper replied, watching as Alex began to roast the sugar-y treat.

Alex's eyebrow raised at Piper's less-than-enthusiastic response, but she didn't want to pry. "You seem much more able to hold your liquor this year compared to two years ago," she joked instead.

Piper laughed again, blushing a little as she remembered how sloppy she had been that night. "I'm more experienced now," she replied, keeping up with the joking tone Alex had set.

Alex's eyes darkened a little at the statement, and she said, "Oh, really?" Her voice was flirtatiously intrigued, and Piper picked up on it.

Her blush deepened, and she attempted to steer the conversation back to safety. "I've been to a party or two since then," she clarified, jokingly under-exaggerating in an obvious sort of way, "and have learned my limits." She enjoyed the buzzed feeling that went along with a few drinks, but disliked feeling out of control that came with being hammered. She had learned to stop right around 2 or 3 drinks.

Alex nodded slowly, turning her attention back to the huge fire in front of them. She pulled the perfectly browned marshmallow from the flames and held it in front of Piper's face. "Marshmallow?" she offered.

The blonde smiled shyly at the older girl, carefully grasping the warm, gooey treat between her fingers and tugging it off of the stick.

Smiling around a mouthful of the sticky sweet morsel, Piper said, "It's good" with her mouth still full. This caused them both to laugh, Piper having to cover her mouth with her hand so that she didn't spew white fluff everywhere.

When they had calmed down, Alex turned to Piper who was staring into the flames with a small smile still gracing her lips. The light from the fire cast her face in a warm glow and made her eyes shine almost black in color.

"Why was tonight just 'okay'?" Alex asked softly, bumping her shoulder against Piper's.

The younger girl's smile faded, and she chewed on the inside of her lip as she avoided Alex's gaze.

"It's embarrassing," she admitted a few moments later, finally shifting her eyes to Alex's before redirecting them back to the fire almost immediately.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," Alex said softly, "but I promise I won't laugh or anything if you want to get it off your chest."

Piper smiled a little, comforted by Alex's words. She trusted Alex and knew she'd stay true to her word. Sighing a little, Piper said, "Polly and Charlie had sex and now that's all Polly can talk about. She wants me to do it with Nate, but I don't know." She finally looked at Alex, cheeks pink both from embarrassment and the heat of the fire. "I've always been nervous about these kinds of things. Like, what if I don't know what to do, or, like, what if I'm just _bad_ at it?"

Alex chuckled a little, and Piper's blush deepened. "You won't be," she reassured. "It might be a little awkward, first times usually are, but you learn quickly."

"So _you've_…?" Piper asked, trailing off at the end of her question, but hoping Alex would know what she was asking. It felt weird to her to talk so bluntly and openly about sex.

"Had sex?" Alex asked with a scratchy laugh. "Yeah."

Piper had thought so, but wanted confirmation from the older girl. She nodded thoughtfully. "And was your first time awkward?" She thought Alex blushed at the question, and Alex hardly ever got embarrassed about stuff like this.

"There were some awkward moments, yeah, but overall, not really. But I think I just got lucky."

Piper wanted to ask more questions about Alex's first time, but she didn't.

"Is performance anxiety the only thing that's holding you back? Like, do you _want_ to have sex with Nate?"

Piper inhaled deeply and shrugged. "I think that's the biggest thing, yeah. It's not that I don't feel like I'm ready or anything like that; I _want_ to have sex," she paused stretching her legs out a little in front of her, cheeks coloring in embarrassment at her admission, "and Nate's sweet; I trust him. I just don't want to humiliate myself because I'm so inexperienced and then have the rest our time here be awkward anytime I see him around." Piper let out a frustrated groan. "But I guess, like you said, my first time will be awkward no matter what; there's no point to keep putting it off. I should just get it over with."

"I could always teach you," Alex said with a teasing tone to her voice, eyebrows jumping up and down suggestively on her forehead.

The offer was stated within a joke, but Piper blushed strongly at the implication. Thinking of Alex in that way caused immediate warmth to spread low in her belly, accompanied by a dull throb even lower.

How did one suggestive remark made in jest by Alex cause more of a reaction inside of her than days of thinking of Nate in the very same way?

She crossed her legs purposefully to alleviate some of the ache that had begun between them.

"Seriously," Alex pressed, in a much deeper tone of voice. "If it would make you feel more prepared and less anxious, the offer stands."

Piper sighed, not knowing what to say at that exact moment. Her heart was thudding erratically in her chest at the direction of their conversation.

The thought of being with Alex in that way excited her, but scared her just the same. She knew that admitting to herself what those feelings were would be a big deal; it would change some of the things she had always felt she knew about herself. She didn't know if she was ready to accept such a change.

"You ready to head back?" Alex asked softly, interrupting her thoughts. "It's late."

Piper nodded in agreement. Alex stood, brushing the sand off the backs of her legs, then held out a hand to help Piper up.

As Piper grasped Alex's hand, something she never would have thought twice about in the past, her stomach somersaulted again, and she couldn't help but notice how nice it felt to simply touch Alex. Her hand was soft and smooth and warm as it wrapped around Piper's, and she found herself not wanting to let go once she had been pulled to her feet.

Alex made the choice for her, however, dropping her hand as she turned to walk in the direction of the house.

* * *

**A/N: Hi guys! Sorry for the long delay! I've been working so hard on trying to get this chapter finished and uploaded for you! I hope you are still interested in reading this story and Vauseman in general :) :)**

**A couple of things:**

**I have no idea what lifeguard training entails - it's probably much more intensive than I described here, so please suspend your disbelief for this story.**

**Also, I realized I had messed up in a previous chapter when Alex is telling McCullough where she's from. In my headcanon for this story, Alex lives in Northampton with her mom (the town where Smith is). Piper's grandparents also live there, which is how Diane is there housekeeper. Piper & her family live near Hartford in this story.**

**I corrected it in the previous chapter, but wanted to clarify in case anyone was mixing up this story (where Diane is Piper's grandparents' housekeeper) & Fall Girl (where Diane is Piper's housekeeper).**

**As always, please let me know what you think & what you want to see happen in this fic! Some of you have already picked up on where I plan to take this & I want you to know I do my best to incorporate your ideas in with the storyline I already have planned out loosely in my head.**

**Peace & Love,**

**H.M.**


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